Bachchan to woo teenager

Amitabh Bachchan has started shooting for two films that feature him in radical (for him) roles — Ram Gopal Varma's Nishabd and Balakrishan's Cheeni Kum. "I start Cheeni Kum (also starring Tabu) today (April 6).

It's an audacious film. Indian cinema is going through a hugely exciting phase, and I'm part of that movement," says Bachchan.

In Varma's Nishabd, Bachchan has a Lolita-like love story with an 18-year old girl. "You can't always be the perfect human being on screen," he says. "To show a human failing on screen is a sign of acceptance and a measure of creative freedom.

Cinema is about human realationships. To deny the existence of such feelings in humans would be wrong. Ramu is extremely honest in his work.

Even before he made Sarkar, he admitted that The Godfather was his inspiration for it. But Sarkar was treated in a completely different manner."

Jhatpat film

AB further explains, "Ramu and I have been toying with several projects, including Sholay, Sarkar 2 and Ek.

The Sarkar sequel and Ek have to be coordinated with Abhishek's dates (he's in both), and Sholay requires a lot of physical activity, which I'm not up to, at the moment. Ramu and I decided to do this romantic film at a stretch in 25 days."

He admits Nishabd is a departure. "It is an intense love story that looks into closed doors to see the passions that simmer within every human being.

But we won't be going into the physical aspect of the relationship at all. " AB says he had no hesitation is doing a part that required him to be romantically involved with an 18-year old girl. "I need to work and I need challenges," he says.

Sugar-free fun

About Cheeni Kum, the actor says, "It's a sarcastic, humorous take on love. It has a lot of tongue-in-cheek humour. It's very different from anything that's been done before. I think it's extremely brave of today's filmmakers to want to talk about supposedly taboo topics, to project them artistically."

Speaking of "taboo", AB is all praise for his Cheeni Kum co-star. "Tabu is gorgeous. What an artiste! Ours is a fun film. Doing a serious film together would've been too obvious."